


Aster Flowers

by Ghostbunne



Series: Marble Hornets One Shots [1]
Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hiding, Love Confessions, M/M, Moving, Moving On, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pining, Post-Canon, Short One Shot, Tim Thinks Jay is Dead, jay lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostbunne/pseuds/Ghostbunne
Summary: After Jay dies Tim tries to move on, but can never really forget the man he loved who is now gone.Jay needs to make sure Tim thinks he's dead. It's better for both of them if he stays out of Tim's life, even if Jay loves him.
Relationships: Jay Merrick/Timothy "Tim" Wright
Series: Marble Hornets One Shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761373
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	Aster Flowers

Jay sat in the grimey old chair, staring out the dust-covered window as he rested his arm on the sill. He felt tired. Tired of the situation he was in, of always running, always hiding. Tired of all the lies and the lack of sleep and the stupid codes he kept having to memorize. Most of all he was tired of sitting in the unlit corridor, waiting for something to happen. For all he knew Alex was behind him right now, silently pulling the trigger. He glanced back. No one. Typical. He didn’t know why his heart dropped when Tim wasn’t there. Tim had lied to him and left him behind with zero protection. If the hooded man had wanted to he very easily could have taken Jay out then and there. Tim probably wouldn’t even care, hell, he probably still hated Jay and was likely only playing nice until this was all over and they could go their separate ways. Jay likely meant nothing to Tim.

He continued to watch out the window until movement caught his eye, drawing in his focus. He pointed the camera out the window, tracking Tim in the shot. He was clearly running from something, and at that moment Jay made a decision. He was done being a coward, he was finished with standing behind someone who was only around because he had to be. He was done playing second fiddle. He would take Alex out, even if it killed him.

Jay wandered through the basement aimlessly, listening, but not listening well enough. It was in the span of a few seconds that it happened. He turned. He stuttered out a few words. Bang. Then he was running again. He wanted to cry. It hurt worse than any physical pain he’d ever felt in his entire life. He slammed a door behind him as he ducked into a room. He could hear Alex banging on the door, trying to get in, but eventually, he left. Jay sat there for what felt like hours, blood flowing down his side to the floor. At least he wouldn’t be bothering Tim anymore, bringing up bad memories and failing to keep his cool. Tim deserved to be rid of him. Jay had only ever caused problems for the other man who only ever tried to help him so they could finish whatever was going on. Jay wondered for a moment what he would do if he had lived if he and Tim had managed to stick together to the end. They would just go their own ways no matter what. Tim didn’t like him, and Jay definitely did not like Tim. Then why did his heart hurt when he thought of seeing him for the last time? Jay didn’t even really notice the Operator. He blacked out as it took him, leaving his camera behind.

When he woke up he was somehow on Tim’s front lawn. A trail of blood through the grass told him he must have dragged himself here, an ordeal which he could not remember. As he laid in the grass next to the road rain began to fall, washing the trail he had left behind away. He cried out for help feebly, hoping somebody, anybody would hear him.

When he finally heard the screech of car tires coming to a rapid halt and watched a small sedan come to a stop in front of him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he would live. 

“Oh my god, you’re covered in blood. This is probably a stupid question, are you OK?” A young girl asked after she hopped out of the driver’s seat and ran towards him.

“Hospital.” Was all he managed to croak out before he let his head collapse to the ground. His body was tired from blood loss and trying to deal with the pain that still throbbed in his side.

“Eric! Help me get him in the backseat!” the teenager called back to the car. Quickly a boy got out and looped his arms under Jay’s hoisting him up. The sudden movement caused Jay to cry out, and when he looked he could tell his shirt had ridden up and the girl had seen the bullet wound. She gagged, but made her way to the back door, opening each side. She moved to the far side and they managed to half drag, half lift Jay into the backseat of the car. They drove off quickly towards the hospital, just a few minutes before a dazed Tim pulled up and stumbled out of his car towards his home. The rain had already washed any evidence of Jay in the yard away, and the house seemed to have the evidence of any strangeness, aside from the ruined mirror, taken from it.

Jay woke up in the hospital with a start, his mind racing as he wondered where Alex was before ha laid back down when he realized where he was. He had lived. He made it. His joy soon turned to sadness when he realized Tim probably thought he was dead, but he quickly became happy again when he realized how much easier that made everything. He could just disappear and never bother Tim again! Tim could move on without having to worry about Jay reappearing and dragging him down into other nonsense. Tim could finally live his life without Jay in the way. Again Jay’s heart ached. Tim had been a good friend. He had been funny, and kind to Jay, and had done everything to help him out, even when Jay didn’t recognize what he needed. But they weren’t friends. At best they were business partners and Tim was only doing what he did to keep up morale and keep them alive. 

“Tim hates me.” Jay quietly reminded himself. He ruined Tim’s life, he had said it himself in the past. And that made Jay’s heartache all the more because as he sat in that hospital room alone with his thoughts unobstructed for the first time in months, maybe even years, he came to the realization he had fallen in love with Tim. The man who wanted nothing to do with him. It was selfish, likely born out of a lack of contact with others, Jay tried to mentally assure himself. As the door to his room flew open and his mother who likely thought he had been dead since his apartment burned down burst into the room crying Jay made a decision. He would do everything to stay out of Tim’s life from this point onwards. He wouldn’t call, wouldn’t text, wouldn’t talk to him. He would move to another town, another state even. He would make sure the other man never had to deal with him again, and he would do everything he could to kill his crush so that Tim could move on with his life without someone he hated dragging him down.

Tim had moved after everything. He couldn’t stand to stay in Alabama any longer and so he relocated across the country to Oregon. It did have more forest, but unlike Rosswood this forest felt comforting and warm and did not have paths changing randomly and without reason. He had rented a small cabin in the woods nearby and had secured a job at a local supermarket. Life was good, but something was missing. More accurately, almost a year after his death, Tim still missed Jay, still missed seeing him and his stupid camera, and still regretted leaving him there to go after Alex when he should have been helping him. If he had stayed behind if he had calmed Jay down and talked to him, broke him out of whatever rage-induced state he had slipped into, he would still be alive. Everything had always had been, and always was his fault. He sighed as he pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket. He wasn’t scheduled that day but needed to pick up bread and milk before returning home. Maybe he’d buy some flowers or something for the makeshift grave for Jay in his backyard. They would never find a body, never gove him a proper burial, but Tim wanted him to have something. 

He made his way through the checkout, greeting his coworkers before heading off into the parking lot and putting his groceries in his car. As he was about to get into the driver’s seat he spotted something familiar from across the parking lot.

“It couldn’t be..” He trailed off as he watched the person walk away from him, the green hat and the sweater all too familiar. He wanted to brush it off as a coincidence, but when they turned to look behind them Tim caught sight of their face. It was Jay. He was here. He was alive. Tim was elated, and then he was pissed, and before he knew it he was across the parking lot with sore knuckles, a surprised Jay scrambling up from the ground.

Jay was not expecting to get decked at nine in the morning while trying to buy something easy for breakfast. He was staying at a hotel in the area while he looked for places to rent. He wasn’t sure why Oregon of all places, but he felt as though something was drawing him there like he had been snagged on the line of an invisible fishing rod. He quickly regained his footing, preparing to ask whoever punched him what their problem was before a quick hug almost bordering on a tackle knocked the air out of him.

“Oh my god Jay, Where were you?” He heard Tim’s familiar voice say with his head buried in Jay’s shoulder. His stomach dropped. Twenty more questions, probably even more than that, spilled from Tim’s mouth, but Jay processed none of them. He didn’t want this to happen. He had tried to avoid Tim, make sure he had no reason to hate him anymore, and the punch he would have expected, but the hug wasn’t anywhere on his radar. “Jesus, I missed you so much! I thought you were dead-”

“Why didn’t you call me?” He shouted as he pulled away, his relief turned to anger. “I left voice mails, I texted, why didn’t you respond?”

As Tim spoke he began to wonder if maybe all this time Jay had hated him, which would suck considering he had fallen in love with him a long time ago. Maybe he had seen his ‘death’ as the perfect opportunity to escape him, as he no doubt had ruined his life by interacting with him at all.

“I- I wanted to, but I couldn’t” Jay responded quietly. “You hated me, I ruined your life, I had to stay out of your way so you could move on.”

Tim lifted his hand and at first Jay assumed he was about to get slapped, flinching at first until the hand only came to gently cup his face.

“Why would you think I hated you? I thought you hated me!” Tim responded, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. “Jay I’ve thought about you every day since I saw what happened. There’s never been a moment here I haven’t regretted leaving you behind instead of trying to help you. Jay I- I loved you.”

“You- you did?” Jay asked. He could feel the heat creeping along his face. No doubt he was blushing. “You’re not joking?”

“Of course I did, why would I joke about that?” Tim responded. “I still do.”

They stood in silence for a moment and Tim wondered if he said the right things. Jay probably wasn’t even into men. He had probably just freaked him out and now there was no chance of them ever being friends again- 

His train of thought was interrupted by a clumsy kiss as Jay leaned down, his hands now framing Tim’s face. His heart did a flip in his chest and he quickly came to his senses and returned the kiss. When Jay pulled away his face was red and he was visibly flustered.

“I’m sorry I should have asked- I just wanted to, uh, show you that I like you- I mean, that I loved you too. I’ve loved you for a long time too.” Jay stuttered out awkwardly, stepping away. “Uh, I’m staying at a hotel nearby, do you want to go there and, uh, talk?”

“I live in the area now Jay, we can head over to my house.” Jay nodded, and they walked together to Tim’s car.

When they arrived at the house Tim unloaded his groceries and put them away as Jay wandered the property.

“What’s this?” Jay called from the backyard just as Tim spotted the flowers on the counter and remembered his little memorial. He walked out the screen door to the back, stopping a few feet away from the small stack of stones that had a photograph of Jay balanced on top, with little trinkets that reminded him of Jay scattered around it. A few Bluejay feathers, some old empty tapes, a hat that looked like his but wasn’t the same. Buried under the stones was a plastic box with Jay’s camera and the tape that had what Tim thought was his death recorded on it, as well as a letter Tim had originally planned to give to Jay after they had finished off everything with Alex.

“It was a sort of grave I made for you. You wouldn’t have ever gotten a proper burial and I wanted to do something.” Tim handed Jay the flowers. “These were going to go here but, your alive, so I might as well give them to you directly.”  
“They’re… Asters.” Jay said as he began to cry, and Tim wondered if he did something wrong, if he misremembered and Aster’s reminded Jay of something terrible.

“I’m sorry-” Tim began to say before he was quickly interrupted.

“No! There’s nothing wrong, it’s just, they’re my favourite and they’re beautiful.” He said, wiping away some tears as more only fell. “I just didn’t think you would know my favourite flowers.”

“You mentioned them once when we passed by some while looking around somewhere. I remembered because you got excited about it and for the first time in a while, things felt… kind of normal. Like I was just on a walk with you enjoying the scenery.” Tim responded. He felt a drop of rain hit his shoulder and looked up at the grey clouds. “I love you, Jay.”

“I love you too,” Jay responded, and as the rain began to fall they kissed, each of them silently promising they would never let anything happen to the other again. And then they went inside, laughing as the water came down.


End file.
